Mercenaries, Inc.: Pandemic's Last Hurrah?

Grimthwacker

By now you've probably heard the news that Pandemic - the folks behind the Full Spectrum Warrior, Destroy All Humans!, Star Wars: Battlefront and Mercenaries series - has essentially been shut down a few years after being acquired by EA along with Bioware. A good number of former employees there have been absorbed into EA's Los Angeles studios, and they've promised to release whatever titles Pandemic had been working on, including The Saboteur. Among the projects they were still involved in is a new multiplayer-focused Mercenaries game called Mercs Inc.:

Gameplay Trailer

EA has officially announced that they'll still be bringing this out sometime in the future. While it's unfortunate to see Pandemic go, the thought of seeing a whole multiplayer game centered around being able to destroy everything in sight Mercs style somewhat lessens the blow. Considering Mercenaries 2's lackluster sales, however, this might wind up being one of those "under the radar" titles released with little to no fanfare, which would be a shame.

So, any thoughts about what could very well be Pandemic's swan song? Could the Mercenaries brand of crazy sandbox action transition well to the multiplayer arena?

Olivaw

I have mixed feelings on Pandemic in general - Full Spectrum Warrior was cool, but the Battlefront games were never good. Meanwhile, Destroy All Humans! and Mercenaries were good, but their sequels were significantly less so

So I was sad to hear that they were getting closed down, but upon reflection I haven't played a game they've made in a good long while

That said, if this was as good as Mercs 1, I'd so be up for it

Zilla360

Mercs 2 was a huge disappointment for me. The vehicles handled like greased lead bricks. They'd have to fix that before I'd be interested in any multiplayer Mercs game.

randombattle

Wow i gotta say this looks and sounds just... awful.. Mercs really doesnt seem like the game to make into mp only. Besides mercs got a good sequel called Red Faction Guerrilla.

Sorenson

...yeeeeeah, I think I'll pass, I like my Battlefield nice and segregated away from my Mercenaries, thank you very much. A pity that that's probably going to be their farewell game, I was hoping for something a bit more, y'know, good.

-SPI-

Huh. Looks like they're making a game that's almost exactly but not quite completely the opposite of what I'd want in a Mercenaries sequel.

What I'd actually want would be: Red Faction Guerrilla + airstrikes and helicopters. Red Faction raised the bar substantially on open world asshole games, if I can't drive a truck through a building and have it creak for a bit and then catastrophically fall apart in a satisfying manner WHY BOTHER?

Grimthwacker

I haven't played Guerrilla yet, but from everything I've heard, the destruction element sounds pretty impressive. Mercs 2 was okay - I had a good time with it, when it wasn't glitching the hell out - but in retrospect it could have been so much more. As for this game, it's still very early in development, though with the shift in studios who knows how much attention this might actually get? The quality might improve during development, but I'm not very hopeful.

Analrapist

I do not see this game being good.
Pandemic in hw many years, made two above average although not great games. Mercs 1 and Full Spectrum Warrior. I was a big fan of both, Mercs 2 was horrible though.

I thought they were going to be shut down years ago.

Jast

Olivaw wrote: »

I have mixed feelings on Pandemic in general - Full Spectrum Warrior was cool, but the Battlefront games were never good. Meanwhile, Destroy All Humans! and Mercenaries were good, but their sequels were significantly less so

So I was sad to hear that they were getting closed down, but upon reflection I haven't played a game they've made in a good long while

That said, if this was as good as Mercs 1, I'd so be up for it

Battlefront games were awesome dude. I still remember the epic shootouts in 2, dodging around, throwing nades, and then unlocking Obi-Wan.

Steev

Yeah, I liked Mercenaries II, but it was still a disappointment for me. This trailer didn't do much for me at all, but on the other hand it wasn't meant to be released to the public.

minderbinder

Someone just found a bunch of concept art created for this game:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Mercs-Inc-Concept-Art-Revealed-22293.html

The video seemed to stick mainly to the jungle environment of Mercenaries 2 but based on the art, it looks like they were looking to broaden their horizons.

brynstar

I know that EA claimed this game is still coming out, but I have no interest in it.

For me, Mercs was a single player game, where I played as one of three wacky characters and blew things up.

Mercs without Peter Stormare, Jennifer Hale, and Phil LaMarr is not Mercs at all.

EDIT: Also, I consider The Saboteur to be Pandemic's last hurrah, and a worthy one at that.

minderbinder

brynstar wrote: »

I know that EA claimed this game is still coming out, but I have no interest in it.

For me, Mercs was a single player game, where I played as one of three wacky characters and blew things up.

Mercs without Peter Stormare, Jennifer Hale, and Phil LaMarr is not Mercs at all.

EDIT: Also, I consider The Saboteur to be Pandemic's last hurrah, and a worthy one at that.

To be fair, we don't know that the game will be completely bereft of single-player. Actual details on the game are pretty slim. We probably wouldn't even know it existed if someone hadn't leaked that video.